We brew a damn good Belgian-style beer. It’s so delicious and drinkable that our small brewery has beat out the "best" in the world to win gold in the San Diego International Beer Festival. We even beat out a Belgian brewery in the Belgian Dark Strong category. After several years in two small tasting rooms, it’s now time to expand our canning operation and distribute our beer nationwide.

Tim St.Martin

CEO

Former mechanical engineer. Started homebrewing in 1993 after falling in love with German beer.

Why you may want to invest

1

$709.1K revenue in 2017.

2

4 medals in 4 years – one gold, one silver, and two bronze from San Diego International Beer Festival and the California Commercial Craft Brewers Competition.

3

Founder has been a brewer for 25 years.

4

Gross profit is $10 / keg.

5

4.5 stars on Yelp.

Our Ambition

Customers love our smooth Belgian beer – it truly sets us apart from all these other breweries who compete with the same boring American Lagers and IPAs. We made $709.1K last year, two-thirds of which was done in just two small tasting rooms. Now, we can't wait to hire a full-time sales and distribution team to blanket San Diego County, then the rest of California and the country. It's finally time to share my 25-year passion with the rest of the world.

Why I Like Barrel Harbor Brewing

First time coming into this establishment and it was a great experience. I can't give Tim enough praise. He was absolutely delightful. I highly suggest trying out this brewery. They have something for everyone.

Readers not in or near North San Diego County probably aren't all that familiar with Vista's Barrel Harbor Brewing Company. A three-years-young business, it started off a bit bumpy, but has found solid footing behind its second and current brewma ...

By Bruce Glassman ← Return to search Barrel Harbor Brewing Click a star to submit your rating. The Vista region has become one of San Diego's most brewery-intensive spots. Today, the area already boasts more than fifteen breweries, and the new guys just keep coming.

I don't mean to quibble, but shouldn't the name be "Barrel Harbor @ At Ease"? After all, "At Ease" is the game store into which Barrel Harbor has put a satellite tasting room. (Barrel Harbor beers are made at their primary location in Vista.) Well, either way, it is a great spot.

An example of the sort of intricate model miniatures on display in the back of At Ease at Barrel Harbor. Three-year-old Vista brewery Barrel Harbor has been getting active of late. It began releasing cans of Fenris IPA earlier this year and aims to begin canning South Island pilsner by the end of the month.

Less than two years ago, Dave Nichols was working as a federal fire chief in San Diego, but now he's joined the red hot craft-brewing industry as co-owner of Barrel Harbor Brewing Co. Barrel Harbor opened Monday in south Vista, becoming the ninth brewery in the city; four others are poised to open or are in the planning stages, city officials said.

Joining the eight other breweries in the Vista Brewers Guild is Barrel Harbor Brewing, who broke the seal on their new tasting room today for a soft opening (a grand opening is scheduled for October 26).

September 9, 2013
@ sandiego.eater.com

09

9

2013

Gold Medal Belgian Beer Ready to Distribute

Since we opened, our Belgian-style beer has been making waves in the San Diego craft beer scene. In just four years, we've won four medals – one gold, one silver, and two bronze. Now, we want to ramp up distribution and get our beers to people across the nation.

In addition to our excellent Belgian beers, we also brew a pale ale, English brown ale, red ale, black IPA, American IPA, West Coast IPA, Imperial IPA, and German pilsner.

We're Already on Tap in Dozens of Locations Across San Diego County

From our two tap rooms to local bars, taverns, and liquor stores.

Funds Raised Will Be Used for Marketing

Our beer is well-loved by customers and experts alike – we have 4.5 stars on Yelp and four medals from craft beer competitions and festivals. But the beer market is saturated, and thus far we've been limited by our marketing budget. With the funds raised from this offering, we plan to launch a targeted marketing campaign and increase our distribution. We want Barrel Harbor beers on tap and in cans across the nation.

Let's Bring Our Award-Winning Beer to the Masses

February 12, 2018

Barrel Harbor Brewing Company is a veteran-owned North San Diego County craft brewery situated along the “Hops Highway” in Vista, CA. We have more craft breweries per capita than any other city in the state of California; we opened as the 79th brewery in San Diego in 2013 and today there are 152. This is both a blessing and a curse: because San Diego is a popular destination for craft beer enthusiasts, many will travel from afar to try our beers. The curse is you need to make an outstanding beer to survive in this crowded market. Thankfully, we do just that, having earned accolades in the San Diego International Beer Festival with two bronze medals and one gold medal, as well as a silver medal in the California Commercial Craft Brewers Competition. I started homebrewing in 1993 as a fun way to make some of my favorite beer styles to share with friends and family. Twenty years later, I turned that hobby into a business right on the crest of the craft beer explosion in San Diego.

Our ambition is to continue riding our growing traction by increasing production year over year with distribution statewide and beyond. I will continue to build the brand first and foremost on quality and offer a wide variety of styles in distribution. I do not want to build on the back of a single beer style, but instead, offer a variety of beers that are equally popular to have the proverbial three-legged stool of product offerings. We’re off to a great start with a comprehensive portfolio of 35 beers, and we are constantly working on new beers as we search for that next Sculpin IPA.

Sincerely,

Tim St. Martin, CEO

As We've Increased Distribution, Our Profits Are Growing

Two-thirds of our sales currently come from our two tap rooms; the other third comes from off-site sales in bars, taverns, and liquor stores. In general, when we produce more beer, our manufacturing overhead decreases and our profit margin increases, which is why we've decided to invest in marketing to increase demand for our beers nationwide.

$709.1K

Revenue in 2017

4 medals

1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze

25 years

Experience brewing beer

$10

Gross profit / keg

Founder

Tim has been brewing beer since 1993. While stationed in West Germany, Tim took a liking to the pilsners, dunkels, Altbiers, and Hefeweizens of the many local breweries in and around the Czechoslovakian border of West Germany in the 1980s. Upon his return to Southern California, Tim discovered he could brew his own authentic German beer at a fraction of the cost, and his homebrewing career began. With his mechanical engineering degree and natural ability to experiment, he tried many different methods and styles, but always followed Reinheitsgebot (the German beer purity law). As the craft brewing industry took off in Southern California, Tim found a new love for the righteously hopped San Diego distinct Imperial and Double IPAs.

and the rest of the team

Interview

Wefunder interviewed Tim St.Martin on October 24, 2017.

Expand all

WF: How did Barrel Harbor begin?

I started homebrewing in 1993. I’d been out camping and had run into a guy who was making German-style beers, and since I’d been stationed in Germany for a few years while I was in the Army, we got to talking. I found out that I could actually make the beers I’d loved in Germany at a fraction of the cost. I started brewing the next week.

In December of 2012 we incorporated.

By February 2013, we’d found a location. We got a Small Business Administration loan and had about $250,000 of our own capital. We went through the planning, permitting, and licensing processes, and in June, we started brewing our own beer. We made our first sale in September and had a grand opening in October.

Around that time, we hired our first master brewer. He moved on about a year and a half later. Then, we hired Lance McCoy who’d been a shift brewer at Green Flash prior to joining us. He’s been on the team ever since. Four months ago, we took home a gold medal for our Belgian dark strong ale, beating out a real Belgian brewery.

Sometime in 2013, the investor who’d been my engineer in my corporate job pulled out, and I bought out his shares. In 2015, my co-founder had a hip replacement and found out he needed another one. He needed money a lot faster than we were earning it, so I bought out his shares too. Finally, my brother-in-law’s family was growing, so he sold me the bulk of his shares in late 2015. He’s now 9% of our ownership. I own the rest of the company.

WF: How have you grown the business in its five-year life?

We started out doing sales and distribution on our own. We had a sales rep and a delivery person, and they’d go get tap handles and sell our beers to bars in coastal San Diego, between Oceanside and Pacific Beach.

We got into wholesale distribution six to nine months after our launch. We had a relationship with a company called Statewide Distribution for about a year, but then they brought in a new CEO and that relationship soured. We brought distribution back in house.

Today, I have a sales manager, several salespeople, and several delivery drivers. We serve San Diego County, including local bars, taverns, and liquor stores.

We also have two tap rooms, one at the brewery and one off-site, where we sell beer by the pint.

WF: What are your profit margins?

My manufacturing overhead is $211 per barrel. That includes the brewer’s salary, the electricity, the water, everything that goes into making a batch of beer.

A barrel produces two kegs, so our overhead is about $105 per keg. We get 128 pints from a keg, or 256 pints from a barrel.

Two-thirds of our production is sold in our two tasting rooms. One-third is distributed, primarily as kegs, to local bars and restaurants. The margins are a lot better in the brewhouses -- we keep about $2 per pint, after the cost of salaries, materials, electricity, rent, and other bills.

On distribution, we make about $10 per keg. In general, the more production goes up, the more manufacturing overhead goes down. My profit margin increases on volume.

For example, we opened a second tasting room in Miramar in November 2016. We didn’t put in a second brewhouse -- all the production is still handled out of the main facility -- this was just a satellite tasting room. We saw almost a doubling in revenue from beer sales after that. Part of the benefit comes from the new location. The main brewery is in an industrial park, so it has to close at 9 p.m. on weekdays and 10 p.m. on weekends. The Miramar location operates from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends.

WF: Who are your customers?

We've got a lot of faithful regulars that come in routinely. Then, on the weekends, it ebbs and flows with visitors who often want to try new breweries and find us in Vista through a Google search.

WF: What makes Barrel Harbor unique?

First, every one of our beers is very good. Even people who say they don’t like IPAs will try ours when I insist, and they say, "Wow! That's really good. I could drink this IPA." Our beers are very balanced. They're not overly bitter. They're not overly malty. All the materials are working in equilibrium. I like to call them technical beers.

Second, our beers are very true to the style that we're brewing. For example, our brown ale is a North English Brown Ale. It's won three medals. I believe that every beer we make is a very good representation of its style. I’ve actually dumped three batches of beer in the last four years, just down the drain, because they weren’t what they were supposed to be.

Third, we try to control the quality of our distributed products as much as possible. I’ve gone to customers and pulled beer out of their inventory if we thought there was something wrong with it. Once, a customer bought a keg of red ale and didn’t tap it for five months. My sales manager said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute, guys. You've had this beer sitting in your cold box for five months. It's old. We just brewed a fresh batch. Let me change out that old keg with a new keg because we really want the best foot forward."

First, a wholesale push will increase our brand prominence. That’s tied into my vision of a marketing push. I want more tap handles throughout San Diego County. I recently applied for an Arizona liquor license and am considering the Arizona market. But, of course, if I want to get out of San Diego County, I’m going to need to sign on with a distributor who can take on sales and distribution outside this region. Also, a distribution push would be supported by an internal bottling or canning line, where we could say, “I need X number of barrels of this or that beer.”

I think our near-term future growth will be in distribution. Once I get that up to a level I’m happy with, I’ll potentially look at another tasting room, two or three years down the road.

WF: What do you plan to do with the money you raise from Wefunder investors?

I know we make exceptional beer. The problem is marketing them. So, first, I want to make a big investment in marketing to expand our brand recognition. I’ll refresh the website and find someone who can manage social media day-to-day.

Second, I want to get on either a canning line or bottling line where we can control our distribution density. Currently, if I want to can, I have to commit to a ten-barrel minimum, because I contract with a canner. I have to tie my brew schedule to Mobile West Canning’s canning schedule. It’s become really difficult to get on their schedule, and that means we end up sitting on inventory for a while. If I had the ability to do small packaging runs on my own, I wouldn’t have to hold inventory for that long.

WF: What’s the key to growing your distribution?

All along, Barrel Harbor Distribution has been a team of both full-time and part-time sales reps. Part-time folks have been our shortcoming. Last month, I told my sales manager to hire two or three full-time reps. Our part-time salespeople have been great, but they've got other jobs.

So we’re changing that strategy in order to make an aggressive entrance into new markets. I was working on a contract today for a new full-time sales representative, which requires the new hire to sell $24,000 in the first 90 days. If he succeeds, I’ll hire them full-time. I started the first guy today, and I’m hoping to bring in one or two more people on the same contract.

Beyond that, I think we need to partner with the right distribution company here in San Diego that can put our beers in front of more people.

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